What it is. The Quran is, for its readers, the word of God itself, revealed in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad through the angel Gabriel. The name means "the recitation" or "that which is recited." Its readers hold that it confirms the earlier revelations given to prophets such as Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus. Its central message is that God is One, merciful and just, and that every person will return to Him.
How it is arranged. The Quran has 114 surahs (chapters), and each surah is made up of ayahs (verses). The word ayah also means "sign." After the short opening surah, Al-Faatiha (The Opening), the surahs are arranged roughly from longest to shortest, not in the order they were revealed. Every surah except one (Surah 9) opens with the basmala, a line that begins in the name of God, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Each surah is traditionally labelled Meccan or Medinan. Meccan surahs come from the years in Mecca, before Muhammad moved to Medina in 622 CE, and Medinan surahs come from the years after. For reading and recitation, the text is also divided into 30 roughly equal parts (each called a juz').
The site has 6,236 verses. That total follows the Kufan way of counting verses, which is used in most printed copies of the Quran today. Other old counting traditions place some verse breaks differently and reach slightly different totals. The words are the same; only the numbering changes.
Language and age. The Quran is in Arabic. Its readers hold that it was revealed over about 23 years, from around 610 CE until Muhammad's death in 632 CE. They hold that it was memorized and written down as it came. Tradition says it was gathered into one written copy soon after his death, and that a standard copy was sent out to the main cities around 650 CE under the caliph Uthman. Most scholars agree that the text was fixed early. They still discuss some details of how it was collected and written down.
How its readers use it. First of all, the Quran is recited aloud. Passages from it are part of every one of the five daily prayers, always in Arabic, and the opening surah is said in each unit of prayer. Many readers memorize the whole book, and the beauty of recitation is a craft of its own. In the month of Ramadan, many communities recite all of it over the month. It is handled with great care, and many readers study it with commentaries and learn the Arabic so they can understand it directly.
The translation on this site. We quote Marmaduke Pickthall's The Meaning of the Glorious Koran (1930), which its title page calls "An Explanatory Translation." It is in the public domain and follows the Arabic closely, and Pickthall writes that it was "scrutinised word by word and thoroughly revised in Egypt." Its readers traditionally hold that the Quran cannot truly be translated. A translation is understood as an interpretation of its meaning, not the Quran itself. Pickthall says this in his own foreword: "The Koran cannot be translated." His work, he writes, "is only an attempt to present the meaning of the Koran—and peradventure something of the charm—in English. It can never take the place of the Koran in Arabic, nor is it meant to do so."
Where to start.